This blog is about a three-year total refit of Oceanus, our 1971 Columbia 43, turning this classic Bill Tripp racer into a comfortable and fast cruising boat. We left Newport, Ore., in February 2016 and sailed to Southern California and Mexico. We are now in Hawaii and plan to cruise these beautiful islands before returning to the Northwest.

Pages dedicated to the Columbia 43

Friday, May 12, 2017

We talked about this since Mexico; that's a year. Finally, on our most recent trip to Costco, the $100 off tipped the scale. We bought a real queen-size mattress.

It is made of three layers of foam and has a quilted top. We thought we could successfully trim it to fit our berth on the boat. That required the additional purchase of an electric carving knife. (The poor man's tool for cutting foam.)

Getting it back to the boat was the first hurdle. Inside the big box, the mattress was vacuum packed and rolled up like a big white marshmallow. It fit in the bow of the dinghy, but just barely. Fortunately, we had a calm evening to row back to the boat. Once there, Virginia lowered the spinnaker halyard, I snapped it around the marshmallow and she used a winch to hoist it on deck. Easy.

In the morning, we opened up the plastic to let the mattress expand on deck. We also need to let it air out for the recommended 24 hours. It was tempting to sleep on deck, I'm a little sorry I didn't.

The next morning we cut open the cover on the hull-side and hacked off about $60 of foam using our new electric carving knife. Our old memory foam topper served as a pattern. Perfect fit the first time.

Getting it through our Columbia 43's large companionway was not a problem. Likewise, sliding it on its end to our berth was easy too. Heaving it onto the berth was a chore, but not bad. The whole process took about an hour with more laughing than swearing.

W cut open one side of the cover. It took two passes to get through all 11 inches of foam.

The mattress is 11 inches thick -- three inches more than our previous assemblage of various pieces of foam. It makes it pretty high, but we still have plenty of room above our heads thanks to the boat's flush deck.

With our old foam assemblage (you really couldn't call it a mattress) the queen-sized sheets never fit well. Now they fit like a glove. The bed is made. Time for a nap.